Question Why can’t we go to Pluto?

[Thomas Likes Space]

As of now, space-facts.com’s theories are trustable. They say, Pluto has 3 TIMES more water! The surface is ice (this is all about space-facts.com). Taking on a warm jacket, shoes and other things and take the flight.

 

[Catastrophe]

In principle, we could. Trouble is (for human passengers) it would take a terribly long time.

Cat

 

[Catastrophe]

"New Horizons launched on January 19, 2006, and it'll reach Pluto on July 14, 2015. Do a little math and you'll find that it has taken 9 years, 5 months and 25 days. The Voyager spacecraft did the distance between Earth and Pluto in about 12.5 years, although, neither spacecraft actually flew past Pluto."

That's 19 years round trip.

BUT, if you want to stop there, you have to factor a lot of time slowing down (as opposed to just flying by at top speed). Likewise speeding up and slowing down on return.

You are talking about a lifetime - and that is assuming humans could travel at the same speed.

Cat

 

[Thomas Likes Space]

So in general, we could go out and go to Pluto, For a lifetime.
Because i am interested in space, if we decide, it’s a lifetime choice with no way of regreting.

My only question is, can we?

 

[Catastrophe]

Well, we have sent a non-manned vessel.

Are you volunteering?

Cat

 

[Catastrophe]

When you said "go to", did you mean stop, or even turn around and come back?

Cat

 

[Catastrophe]

BTW, when sending a human you need life support for all those years.
Food, water, etcetera.

Cat

 

[Wolfshadw]

My only question is, can we?

No. We can't. We do not have the proven technology for a human crew to survive in space for such a journey. Solve the problems of radiation, extended periods of weightlessness, and the human psychological factor and then we might have a chance.

-Wolf sends

 

[Catastrophe]

I am in total agreement.

Cat

 

[XXXXXUSERXXXXX]

We did go to Pluto, we just can't move in.

 

[Catastrophe]

We did go to Pluto, we just can't move in.

WE did not. We just sent an object there.

Cat

 

[rj.rivero]

BTW, when sending a human you need life support for all those years.
Food, water, etcetera.

Cat

Yes in that case is cheaper to send robots, they can do almost a human can do in the planet, robots donot breath, donot eat, they dont have problem with hot or cold weather, and radiation donot afect them.

 

[Grinning Bandicoot]

Having read comments about the costs with a manned expedition Ed Lerner offered a technique but its very bandwidth intensive. Another come from history and that of asceticism where one is launched on way with life support for one and a structure designed to be added to. Ascetic two launches with the same life support and a structure to add to the first and provide different and added capabilities. This continues until structure is built out and ready for a monastic community. It all winds down to how much energy we wish to spend and the costs of the energy

 

[Helmer]

My only question is, can we?

Difficult question. Can we send a rocket to Pluto with passengers onboard? Probably.
Will they arrive 19 years later, all in good mental and physical health? Unlikely.

 

[Helmer]

Yes in that case is cheaper to send robots, they can do almost a human can do in the planet, robots donot breath, donot eat, they dont have problem with hot or cold weather, and radiation donot afect them.

Robots do have problems with these things.
Too hot, they overheat or even melt.
Too cold and their mechanical joints freeze up - oil in the hydraulics gets too thick.
Radiation affects circuitry, solar radiation even affects computers here on earth - that's why we have Error Correction Code (ECC) memory in them where needed.

Some planets are even highly acidic, and corrosion have to be factored in.

 

[Rothauserc]

As of now, space-facts.com’s theories are trustable. They say, Pluto has 3 TIMES more water! The surface is ice (this is all about space-facts.com). Taking on a warm jacket, shoes and other things and take the flight.

Historically survival and wealth creation are stronger drivers of exploration and settlement than curiosity. Traditionally, science(knowledge gathering) was a tool in the long process of exploration, which included surveys, mining, infrastructure creation and settlement(all advanced and protected with military assistance). This was the model of national exploration prior to the twentieth century.

The Lagrange point between the Earth and Moon is a convenient and practical location to store supplies for space faring. We need an incremental, cumulative program that could be paid for as we established these incremental capabilities. The Moon is a destination, but more importantly, it is an enabling asset. By using lunar resources including the ice at the poles, we would learn to "cut the cord" with Earth of space logistics.

What is needed is the incremental, cumulative build-up of space faring infrastructure that is both extensible and maintainable, a growing system whose aim is to transport us anywhere we want to go, for whatever reasons we can imagine, with whatever capabilities we may need.

 

[Helmer]

You are talking about a lifetime - and that is assuming humans could travel at the same speed.

Cat

Can you expand on that?
I never could wrap my head around the whole speed thing - isn't it relative?
I.e. moving away from point A (i.e. earth) towards point B - so the speed is relative to the object you started from.

But how should that affects life?
Earth is moving at a staggering speed of 460 meters per second in our solar orbit.
But then our solar system is moving at 200 kilometers per second.
So it seems to me, life don't care how fast we're going?

But falling deeper into the rabbit hole;
What would happen if life suddenly stopped moving?
Could we even?
Do we even know how to find absolute 0 relative to not just earth, the solar system or our Galaxy, but to the entire universe?

 

[HarmsworthAG]

My Mark Noble Space Adventures series of novels deals with the possibilities at Trappist-1.

Red Dwarf systems are often older than ours. Trappist-1 could be over 7 billion years old.

Getting to Trappist-1 is the problem. I've addressed it as best I can in Trappist-1 and The Spolding Conundrum.

Have I got the possibilities right, I wonder.

 

[Richard Popovich]

So in general, we could go out and go to Pluto, For a lifetime.
Because i am interested in space, if we decide, it’s a lifetime choice with no way of regreting.

My only question is, can we?

"Can We?" Maybe someday far in the future,. With our current technology we need to concentrate on unmanned vehicles to explore the outer reaches of the Solar System. A future fourteen month round trip to Mars only in its planning stages. Let the landers take their chances with Pluto.

 

[tiape]

With our present setup, there is also another reasons that we can't go to Pluto. We would need to have a power source such as nuclear that doesn't depend on the sun. Only Russia has been using nuclear. Problem is that we haven't figured out how to make it safe and lightweight for the long haul.

The reason that the Horizon made it was because it would go into hibernation until awakened for tasks thus saving energy. That would be difficult with people on board.

 

[Brigitte Kreisl-walch]

Too far away and too cold !

 

[Helio]

"Can we?"

No. What's the phrase, "You can look, but don't touch!" "Touching" will require extraordinary costs and efforts; far too much "squeeze for the juice". Starting with the Moon or Mars is the only logical choice and by a long shot.

 

[vector]

Are the people making this journey to the wilds of the outer solar system seafood lovers? Cephalopod mollusks - octopus, squid, etc - came from somewhere, after all. Their oxygen carrying pigment in their blood is copper (hemocyanin) rather than iron (hemoglobin). Copper-rich blood operates better at very cold temperatures than does iron-rich blood.
Crustaceans too have copper carrying blood.
If you look at the population of the sea floor near Alaska - Kamchatka or Antarctica, the place is thick with mollusks and crustaceans.
Copper carrying blood, btw, is not red but rather, blue.

Pluto seems like a long way to go for crab scampi or calamar.

How about we do lunch instead at Europa or Enceladus?

 

[Catastrophe]

Helmer
Re human travel speeds, I was thinking of acceleration and deceleration. but doubtless some fictitious mechanism will be proposed.

The other factors detailed above already provide more than enough of an answer.

Cat

 

[nebula]

If we accept that using current technology, travel to Pluto would be in the realm of 9+ years (1 way). This would be a lifetime round trip close to 20 years and the logistics required for such a journey would be astronomical. The toll it would take on any human astronaut would be considerable and possibly debilitating unless newer technologies are developed to shorten this time to travel in terms of newer/more efficient propulsion systems or the use of "life support"pods to allow the astronaut to travel safely cocooned.
I think the title of Australian author Geoffrey Blainey 's book said it all, "The Tyranny of Distance".